A small group of 6 RPAC senior men competed in the annual South of the Thames 5 mile Team Race on Saturday, hosted by Kent AC at Beckenham Place Park.

Charl Jordaan (55th overall), Steve Bass (60th), Matt Aylott (88th) and Andy Walker (a welcome return from injury in 127th) formed the scoring team, finishing in 16th place out of the 40 teams. The teams who beat us included 5 (!) from Kent AC, and we beat many local rivals including SLH, so not a bad result. Paddy Patrick and Malcolm Woodman completed the RPAC runners in 213th and 218th respectively.

We all suffered the bad traffic to get to Beckenham Place Park. Steve was driving Charl and Matt - and they got there less than ten minutes before the start, and only got numbers thanks to Andy bringing them to start line. Charl pinned his upside-down and Steve ended up running to the start line with one shoe in his hand - they showed no pity and they started a few seconds after, meaning he had to stop for 30 seconds or so in the first mile to do up his flapping shoe-laces... Still, it was good to get out and run among a quality field, on a cold but sunny day.